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The Protestant ethic - a moral code stressing hard work, rigorous self-discipline, and the organization of one's life in the service of God - was made famous by sociologist and political economist Max Weber. In this brilliant study (his best-known and most controversial), he opposes the Marxist concept of dialectical materialism and its view that change takes place through "the struggle of opposites." Instead, he relates the rise of a capitalist economy...
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Conservative columnist David Brooks explores the four commitments that define a life of meaning and purpose: to a spouse and family, to a vocation, to a philosophy or faith, and to a community. Our personal fulfillment depends on how well we choose and execute these commitments. Brooks looks at a range of people who have lived joyous, committed lives, and who have embraced the necessity and beauty of dependence. He gathers their wisdom on how to...
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"After two decades of...research on American poverty, Kathryn Edin noticed something she hadn't seen since the mid-1990s -- households surviving on virtually no income. Edin teamed with Luke Shaefer, an expert on calculating incomes of the poor, to discover that the number of American families living on $2.00 per person, per day, has skyrocketed to 1.5 million American households, including about 3 million children....The authors illuminate a troubling...
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The classic work that redefined the sociology of knowledge and has inspired a generation of philosophers and thinkers In this seminal book, Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann examine how knowledge forms and how it is preserved and altered within a society. Unlike earlier theorists and philosophers, Berger and Luckmann go beyond intellectual history and focus on commonsense, everyday knowledge-the proverbs, morals, values, and beliefs shared among...
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The most popularly read, adapted, anthologized, and incorporated primer on sociology ever written for modern readers Acclaimed scholar and sociologist Peter L. Berger lays the groundwork for a clear understanding of sociology in his straightforward introduction to the field, much loved by students, professors, and general readers. Berger aligns sociology in the humanist tradition-revealing its relationship to the humanities and philosophy-and establishes...
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ZEN FOR NOTHING is a masterly immersion into life at a Japanese Zen monastery over three seasons. Swiss novice Sabine arrives at Antaiji and, after a brief welcome, she begins to learn the monastery rules: how to bow, sit in the meditation hall, carry out movements with chopsticks, etc. There’s more to life there than meditation, farming, and maintenance, however—there are picnics, music, and Wi-Fi. And after the last snow has melted away, the...
7) The Mission
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Every year, over 60,000 young missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are sent across the world to preach their gospel. Sundance Film Festival selection THE MISSION follows four Latter-day Saints teenagers from their training in Utah to their missions in Finland, home of Europe’s most private and secular people. Tania Anderson's film tracks these wide-eyed, impassioned teens on their two-year rite of passage, as they struggle...
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With visually stunning landscapes and immersive sound, GODS OF MEXICO is a poetic survey of the vast landscapes and rich diversity of several communities of rural Mexico. Using richly saturated color and hypnotic black-and-white interludes, filmmaker Helmut Dosantos takes viewers through salt pans, deserts, highlands, jungle, and underground mines—paying tribute to those who fight to preserve their cultural identity amidst the shadows of modernization....
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Influential scholar Peter L. Berger explores the sociological underpinnings of religion and the rise of a modern secular society Acclaimed scholar and sociologist Peter L. Berger carefully lays out an understanding of religion as a historical, societal mechanism in this classic work of social theory. Berger examines the roots of religious belief and its gradual dissolution in modern times, applying a general theoretical perspective to specific...
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"I wrote this book not sure I could follow the road to character, but I wanted at least to know what the road looks like and how other people have trodden it."--David Brooks With the wisdom, humor, curiosity, and sharp insights that have brought millions of readers to his New York Times column and his previous bestsellers, David Brooks has consistently illuminated our daily lives in surprising and original ways. In The Social Animal, he explored the...
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"Can reading a book make you more rational? Can it explain why there seems to be so much irrationality in the world, including, let's be honest, in each of us? These are the goals of Steven Pinker's follow-up to Enlightenment Now (Bill Gates's 'new favorite book of all time'). Humans today are often portrayed as cavemen out of time, poised to react to a lion in the grass with a suite of biases, blind spots, fallacies, and illusions. But this, Pinker...
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Exploring the present catharsis following the death of George Floyd, we dive into how the current uprising is impacting communities, and how we can contribute to discussions about racial justice reform. This remix of the 2015 A Conversation about Race series is a vibrant collage of people's lives and experiences, which powerfully frame and illustrate the reckoning that is happening around us.
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BECKET ATHENAEUM - BOOK CLUB SELECTIONS
NYT - Audio Nonfiction
NYT - Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction
NYT - Paperback Nonfiction
NYT - Audio Nonfiction
NYT - Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction
NYT - Paperback Nonfiction
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"Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis--that of white working-class Americans. The decline of this group, a demographic of our country that has been slowly disintegrating over forty years, has been reported on with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J.D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you...
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The epic story and ultimate big history of how human society evolved from intimate chimp communities into the sprawling civilizations of a world-dominating species
If a chimpanzee ventures into the territory of a different group, it will almost certainly be killed. But a New Yorker can fly to Los Angeles—or Borneo—with very little fear. Psychologists have done little to explain this: for years, they have held that our biology...
If a chimpanzee ventures into the territory of a different group, it will almost certainly be killed. But a New Yorker can fly to Los Angeles—or Borneo—with very little fear. Psychologists have done little to explain this: for years, they have held that our biology...
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"In 2010, pioneering sociologist Catherine Hakim shocked the world with a provocative new theory: In addition to the three recognized personal assets (economic, cultural, and social capital), each individual has a fourth asset-erotic capital-that he or she can, and should, use to advance within society. In this bold and controversial book, Hakim explores the applications and significance of erotic capital, challenging the disapproval meted out to...
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One of the great intellectual battles of modern times is between evolution and religion. Until now, they have been considered completely irreconcilable theories of origin and existence. David Sloan Wilson's Darwin's Cathedral takes the radical step of joining the two, in the process proposing an evolutionary theory of religion that shakes both evolutionary biology and social theory at their foundations.
The key, argues Wilson, is to think of society...
17) I'm new here
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Three children from other countries (Somalia, Guatemala, and Korea) struggle to adjust to their new home and school in the United States.
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Tahi is one woman’s journey around the world on a quest to find answers about connection, but what she discovers is a valuable teaching for all of humanity. Focusing on 4 of the 21 countries explored, the film investigates whether our commonalities are the key to unlocking an emerging world where people, animals and the environment can co-exist in balance.
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The past year has seen a resurgence of interest in the political thinker Hannah Arendt, "the theorist of beginnings," whose work probes the logics underlying unexpected transformations--from totalitarianism to revolution. A work of striking originality, The Human Condition is in many respects more relevant now than when it first appeared in 1958. In her study of the state of modern humanity, Hannah Arendt considers humankind from the perspective of...
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An award-winning journalist takes us deep into the Appalachian Mountains where the last truly quiet town of America exists and where its residents live a life free from constant digital connectivity, challenging us to rethink the role of tech in our lives.
Deep in the Appalachian Mountains, Green Bank, West Virginia, is a place at once futuristic and old-fashioned. It is home to the Green Bank Observatory, where astronomers search the depths of the...
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